


Green is Death’s Favorite Color

by TheSlytherinWitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Lucius Malfoy, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Death, Death Eater Draco Malfoy, Death Eaters, Draco Malfoy In Love, Draco dreams about Harry, Draco grows up, Drarry, Everyone hates Slytherin, Follows the events of the book, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Rivalry, Harry Potter from Draco’s POV, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining Draco Malfoy, Slytherin, Slytherin did nothing wrong, The Malfoys suck at parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-24 21:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17712029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSlytherinWitch/pseuds/TheSlytherinWitch
Summary: This is the canon events of Harry Potter told from Draco’s love struck point of view as he grows up in a world of people who oppose everything he has been taught to stand for. This is the part of Hogwarts that Harry never looked at: the bias and the hatred of everything green.-Since he was a little boy Draco has dreamed of a boy coming to save him, taking him far away from Malfoy Manor, traveling to a land far away where they could both be safe. The boy in his dreams is beautiful as he takes Draco’s hands and tells him that he will protect him.When Draco first meets Harry Potter he does not recognize him because Harry Potter, for all the legend that he was, looked almost ordinary and in some cruel twist of fate, it was Draco who was beautiful and confident and proud. The boy he had dreamed of protecting him looked as though he was the one who needed protection.Harry Potter could not, would not, and did not save him.





	Green is Death’s Favorite Color

Draco Malfoy can’t remember the first time he heard the Dark Lord’s name. He’d been born four months before the war against the Death Eaters had been won and Voldemort had disappeared, but he’d grown up in a whirlwind of whispers and rumors and the shadow of Azkaban jail bars.

Draco can’t remember the first time he heard Harry Potter’s name. He’d been born about two months after the Boy Who Lived had come into the world and vanquished the Dark Lord, but he’d grown up in a mess of a society that adored him for doing nothing but surviving a single visit with Voldemort when Draco himself had lived in his family’s manor with him for months as a baby before the war was over.

Draco can’t remember the first time he heard someone speak badly of his family and the house they belonged to. He’d been born into a world reeling from betrayal, a world that saw snake and thought poison, heard cunning and thought deceitful, viewed green and thought death. He watched his parents and their friends as he grew and noticed when they stopped mentioning their time at Hogwarts and their friends from other houses. He noticed their fear.

Draco can’t remember a time when he was told he could be anything. He was simply told what he was and what he would be. A snake. A Death Eater. A boy with a tainted family. A boy who would make his father proud. An arrogant child. An ambitious one. A boy with money, a tainted family, and an undecided future.

The odds were never in Draco Malfoy’s favor. But then he meets the Boy Who Lived. The one who was born with no money, no family, and a future written in the stars. 

When Draco thinks of Harry Potter he thinks of strength and confidence and pride, everything he wishes he was, and everything he thinks a savior should be. A person who defeats the most powerful wizard alive must be miraculous. Must be powerful and sure.

Since he was a little boy Draco has had dreams of a boy coming to save him, taking him far away from the twisting walls of Malfoy Manor, traveling to a land far away where they could both be safe. The boy in his dreams is beautiful as he takes Draco’s hands and tells him that he will protect him.

Draco wakes with a smile that never stays when his eyes open not to the sunny fields of his dreams, but to the darkness of his room in a mansion shadowed by his father’s steely blue eyes.

After he is hit over the head for discussing these fantasies at the age of nine, Draco stops talking about them. But he never stops thinking about them and his ears always perk up when he hears stories that tell of his victory. Some days the sun shining in Harry’s imaginary hair is the only light Draco can see.

When Draco first meets Harry Potter he does not recognize him. Perhaps if his imagination had not been so big, his idealization not quite so large, he might have noticed the scar that peeked out of the hair of the boy next to him in the robe shop in Diagon Alley. But he did not notice because he did not look.

Because Harry Potter, for all the legend that he was, looked almost ordinary and even skittish. In some cruel twist of fate, it was Draco who was beautiful and confident and proud. The boy he had dreamed of looked as though he was the one who needed protection.

“Hello,” he said to the stranger beside him as tape measures flew around the room. “Hogwarts too?”

“Yes,” the boy replied. He’d had a nice voice, quiet and honey sweet, filled with the nerves that could only come from being thrown into an unknown land of magic from a life of mundanity. This boy could not have been pureblood or, at least not from one of the famous wizarding families.

There was something about the boy that made Draco want to talk to him, but he knew what his father would expect of him at Hogwarts- what his whole family would expect. He would be the top of his class, socially and academically, but his mother had told him that his name would not get him everywhere. Draco knew that she was right but using his wealth and status was still a good way to start.

His father would not allow him to make friends with kindness.

So he bragged about his money and about what his parents would buy for him. He flaunted his knowledge of Hogwarts and tried to seem as though he knew exactly what he was doing.

He could tell the boy beside him was growing uncomfortable.

Good, he thought, a little guiltily. At least I know more about this school then some people. Father will be proud of me.

He was wrong.

“Draco, did you hear the rumor?” Lucious asked once his robe had been paid for and they were free to walk along the alley of shops.

“Rumor? What rumor?”

The man scowled. “Apparently the monster Hagrid escorted Harry Potter to Diagon Alley today.” Draco’s heart stopped. “What a disaster, truly. Bad enough they let a pureblood be raised by muggles now they’re letting Hagrid watch him? Pathetic-”

Draco hardly heard him. His mind was fixed on the image of the boy from the store. No, that couldn’t have been him. Draco felt his throat get tight and tears pricked at the backs of his eyes.

That boy had known nothing about Hogwarts! He’d had too big clothes and long limbs and messy hair. He did not look like a hero. And yet, Draco thought as his father dug his fingers painfully into his arm to get him to move again, he could not get the warm brown skin and emerald eyes out of his head.

When he fell asleep Harry was there again but he looked just as he had in the store and this time he was not leading Draco towards the light, but chasing him into the dark, calling him cruel and insensitive in a voice that echoed in his head even as he woke from sleep.

Draco gasped and choked on tears as he thought of what he had said, playing the conversation they’d had again and again in his mind. He must have thought he was such a prat. Draco, for the first time in his life, felt felt ashamed. Not only of himself, but also of his family. It was their fault, really, for giving him this cruelty. He was too young to be so mean.

On the steps to the Great Hall he tried again, reaching out his hand in some sort of redo of his actions, as some sort of apology. He winces as he recalls their meeting on the train and, though he knows the boy will not, he hopes Harry will see this as an apology.

The rejection still feels like a slap in the face but Draco has been hit many times before. He knows how to handle a blow.

The Sorting Hat calls out Slytherin and Draco nods. There had not been a doubt in his mind that it would. When Harry is placed in Gryffindor Draco nods again because where else would the brave golden boy of his dreams be placed? He had always been a knight to Draco and knights belong in a house of chivalry and courage.

When the Slytherin prefect leads the first years to their common room Draco shivers. The dungeons look cold and dark and unkind. He wonders whose decision it was to place the common room there then decides he does not want to know.

Draco can see how an outsider would think it was a place of evil but he is greeted with hospitality, flickering fires, and couches forged in luxury. The students of his house are children who have been labeled as evil the moment the hat is lifted from their heads but they are trying their best to protect each other. Maybe that is why they are so isolated from other houses, if they are treated badly they learn to protect themselves and their own.

The year begins. Draco studies as hard as Hermione Granger to reach the top of the class and he discovers that he likes the Potter he sees in his sleep far more than the one he fights while awake.

When Halloween rolls around and Quirrel informs the school of the troll in the dungeon Dumbledore sends the students back to their common rooms and ignores the blatant truth that the Slytherin common rooms are down there. It could not have been a mistake. He knew what he was doing when he send hundreds of students under his care towards a potential risk to their lives. He simply did not care.

And none of the other teachers or students felt that it was important enough to challenge. They did not care for the Slytherins. Draco pressed himself between Crabbe and Goyle, the only two friends who his parents had approved of and the only ones he had let himself make. Hearing his mother’s disapproving voice would have been too much for him.

Draco tried to ignore his fear as they were led deep below the castle and into the danger zone. He had screamed when Quirrel collapsed and he felt like doing it again as they made their way through the damp halls that were beginning to bare a chilling resemblance to his family’s manor.

His thoughts twisted the troll he pictured chasing them into his father until he wasn’t quite sure where he was, home or school. They had both become places of oppression and fear. Draco cursed himself for believing that school would be better than the home he had left.

Months later Harry is sneaking around. Draco notices- of course he notices- and he decides to catch him in the act. Maybe it was payback for rejecting his friendship or another way to test Harry’s reactions but Draco gets them caught by McGonagall. If he’d known he would be roped into detention too he would never have done it. Snape is going to be furious about the lost points.

He reports to detention and is horrified to discover they are being sent into the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid puts him with Harry and for just a second, before he gets control of himself, he feels relieved. Harry will protect him. He’s always protected him. Of course then he realizes he’s confusing his dreams with reality and the fear washes over him again.

“My father won’t stand for this!” he exclaims desperately, as though that might change Filch’s mind. He knows his father wouldn’t care about him, not really, but he would certainly cause a fuss for appearance's sake. Besides, Lucious loved to throw his power and influence in the faces of others.

The forest was terrifying. Draco stays as close to Harry as he can get away with. Their arms brush together and the boy tries not to feel hurt when Harry recoils away from him. They find the blood and the unicorn and Draco runs. He expected Harry to follow but he doesn’t and soon enough Draco’s found Hagrid and babbled something about unicorns and monsters and Harry and the man is running off through the trees. The rest of the night is a blur of branches and thorns and spider webs.

When he challenged Harry to a duel it was a split second decision. He had wanted to scare him, wanted to make him see that even the great slayer or the Dark Lord could be beaten.

It was only later that he realized he was also curious. He wanted to see if Harry truly was the fearless wizard he saw at night. When he realized his own true intentions Draco felt sick. He needed to stop confusing his childish fantasies with the know-nothing boy that Potter truly was.

He had felt it again, the guilt, as he told Filch that Harry would be out of bed that night. He pushed it aside. He could not feel like he was betraying him, they were not even friends. They were enemies. He owed Harry nothing.

Somehow that didn’t make his heart hurt any less.

The rest of the year was a blur of snakes and studying and troubled sleep. His dreams were all the same- Harry smiled and forgave him and they held hands with skin warmed from the sun.

When Dumbledore disregarded a year of hard work on behalf of the Slytherins and the other three houses above Gryffindor, Draco was outraged. He had earned many of those points himself and the humiliation was made worse by the fact that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff also began to cheer.

He could feel the shame of his classmates as they all realized that no one had wanted them to win at all. Everyone was thrilled that the dark house had been dethroned.

Draco scowled up at Dumbledore who was smiling. He had done it on purpose. He had given Longbottom points simply because it would allow his favorite house to win.

It didn’t matter that Harry had once again put a stop to He Who Must Not Be Named (though Draco had still felt an uncontrollable jolt of panic when he’d heard about it) because he entire situation would have been avoided if Dumbledore had simply left the stone in the mirror and told no one about it. As far as Draco had been told the stone was only retrievable if you wanted the stone but didn’t want to use it which meant that Quirrel would have never came close to retrieving it and would have had no idea where it was should Harry not have interfered and Dumbledore had not insisted upon guarding it with stupid tests. 

Besides, Harry and his friends had broken many school rules and almost let Voldemort have the stone. They did not deserve the points. And Neville? All he had done was threaten to fight his friends which was also against the rules and get knocked out by Granger. That was more pathetic than noble in Draco’s opinion. 

Still, Draco couldn’t help but be proud of Harry, even if he didn’t think the lions deserved to win. He’d killed Quirrel and fought back against Voldemort. 

When he glanced up from his food and saw the blinding smile on Harry’s face Draco felt in awe of him. Because in that moment, dressed in scarlet and covered in wounds, he looked like a hero.

He looked away, back to his own table, and the tide of green that he was a part of. His house. It was more of a home than the Manor ever would be. Draco was dreading the summer but he knew one thing for sure, Harry would be going with him. He could always see him in his dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this!  
> Honestly I'm not sure where the idea for this piece came from but I thought it was sorta cool. I know the writing style is a little unconventional but I think it works for this. I will be writing more chapters following the events of the books soon!  
> If you want, leave kudos and tell me what you liked (or didn't I guess) in the comments!


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